Night on Earth
by blackeyedgurl
Summary: One night on Earth, Set during Sometimes a Great Notion. Kara/Lee While her world burns, he burns for her. Starts out PG-13, becomes NC-17. Some Spoilers for SaGN & after.
1. Walk the Earth

_**Night on Earth**_

_**Pairing: Kara/Lee Starbuck/Apollo**_

_**Timeframe: During Sometimes a Great Notion (Season 4.5) **_

_**Warning: Contains spoilers for episodes up to and including During Sometimes a Great Notion. Also, this is my first bit of BSG FanFic. I've been out of the writing loop for a long time, so please be kind.**_

_**Rating: Starts out PG evolves into NC-17 territory**_

_**Info: Slightly AU, Lee stays planet side instead of heading up to the Galactica, thus not going out for dinner with Dee. All other events remain virtually unchanged**_

_**Disclaimer: the first 2 lines of chapter 2 are directly quoted from the episode, and I don't own any of these characters, I play in this world, I sure as hell don't own it.**_

A handful of Cylons and humans elected to spend their days and nights on the decimated planet's surface. Some were excavating, others were just wandering, trying to find a reason why all of this happened.

Lee saw one of the Number Twos, better known as Leoben, emerge from the brush along the beach at a swift jog. He couldn't be sure, as they all looked alike, but he thought that it was the model who had accompanied Starbuck on her search for the beacon. The Leobens seemed especially fond of Kara, one of them being a constant presence, like a shadow following her everywhere. He wondered if it was the same one that had held her captive on New Caprica. He had never had the guts to ask Kara about that time, and she had never offered up any information. Like so many things, this was one of Kara's secrets.

The Leoben looked somewhat distressed and more than a little angry. Lee waited a few minutes for Kara to appear, but she didn't. For a moment the worst case scenario crossed his mind. He shook it off, they had such a shaky truce with the Cylons that one of them wouldn't dare kill a human, let alone one as important or present as Starbuck. Well, at least not without a damn good reason.

"Where's Kara?' He inquired as he approached the Leoben. "She didn't come back with you, is she still looking for the point of origin?"

"She's still out there," Leoben spat the words out as he gestured over the dunes towards the rolling hills beyond.

"Alone?"

"We're all alone in this." Leoben remarked dryly as he headed towards the Three.

This didn't make much sense to Lee. One minute this Cylon was hounding her, filling her head with crazy, obsessed with her, and then he just ups and abandons her? No, it didn't make sense, but he was talking about a cylon.

The last raptor off the planet for the night was boarding. The Leoben followed Dee, Anders, Tyrol and Tory onto the ship. Lee had planned to be on that raptor, but it seemed Leoben had taken his spot. He grabbed it's pilot.

"Helo, tell my dad I'll be back up there tomorrow."

"Sure Mr. Former President." Helo jabbed him and offered a smile. "Staying for the lovely views?" Helo noticed Lee staring at the Leoben, "Did he take your seat? I can kick him off."

"No, it's fine."

"Wasn't he with Kara before?"

"Yeah, she hasn't come back. He said she was still out there. She shouldn't be out there alone."

"Here, let me get you a survival kit."

"Helo, its one night, it's not survival by any means when the planet is all but dead."

"You aren't dressed to be down here, it'll be cold tonight. There's some water, what passes for food & radiation indicators." Helo pulled the pack out of the raptor. "I'll let the Admiral know that you are down here. You know that Two hasn't left her alone since the Demetrius, right? Even on separate ships I was constantly putting wireless calls through to her from him. Why would he just abandon her now?"

"I don't know man, but I hope to find out. Lee picked up the pack and strapped it to his back. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Helo boarded the shuttle. Lee saw Dee inside, she looked concerned, she always looked concerned. She offered a small, sad wave. He waved back. Two days earlier he had signed the divorce papers Lampkin had drawn up. Dee requested them. He had received his copy of the finalization while on Colonial One. The doors sealed and Lee turned toward the land.


	2. Salt the Earth

"Your hybrid said I was the harbinger of death, that I would lead us all to our end."

She had seen the horror pass over his face as the words came out, then his eyes turned to stone and she knew he was lost to her. He had just shut down, like the machine he always was, operational just operating at half power.

"If that's me sitting there, then what am I????" She yelled at him as he walked away. She really wanted to know what she was, if he didn't know who would? "You might not like what you find," his words echoed in her mind. She didn't like what she found at all.

The dog tags were cold in her hand, but not as cold as his reaction. She had disappointed so many people, but Leoben had never given up on her no matter how many times she killed him or beat him or ignored him. He was a believer, now all his belief was gone. She shifted the weight of the tags in her hands as he ran away, and then put them safely in her lapel pocket.

Somehow this all felt as if she had come full circle. Finding what is more than likely your own body will often cause such a reaction.

She knew he wouldn't tell about this discovery. He was so confused and she knew this shook his whole world view. She had to make sure that no one else would find it though.

Kara wiped the sleeve of her jacket over the name plate near the cockpit of the viper. **STARBUCK** If that's whose viper this was, who did that make her? She used the screwdriver she had used to pull the DRADIS out of her new viper to unscrew and pry off the old name plate. She also used it to carve out the tail numbers and all other identifying marks. This wasn't enough damage control. The Viper was out of place on this planet, the body and ship too recent, showing no signs of the 2,000 year old war that had taken place here.

She did what she had to do, that was what she was best at after all. The body, her body, was nearly weightless. The remaining flesh was long gone; it was just a flight suit full of bones. She could overly relate to that feeling.

Twilight was falling, it was getting darker. The single moon was rising on one horizon, what could be seen of the yellow sun setting on the opposite. Not much of either celestial body could be seen as even after 2,000 years the atmosphere here was frakked. Consequently it was getting colder; she hadn't planned to spend the night here, to be here this long.

Two birds, one stone. She collected pieces of wood and brush, dried long grasses and piled them in and on top of the viper remains. She picked up the pieces she could see of the destroyed ship and added them to the pile. The body of the ship should still have enough tillium in it to set this all ablaze.

Carefully she picked up and placed the body, she couldn't think of it as her body right now, and placed it on top of the pile. Not many people have a chance to build their own pyre. Her ancestors had been disposed in similar fashion, burn the body, spread the ashes, feed the land. Was that what this body was? An ancestor? Was this ground even worth feeding?

Before she lit the match, she said a silent prayer:

"_Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer, guide this daughter to the Elysium Fields. May she join with those who came before and left before her. Keep her safe, whoever she is."_

She lit the match and watched the flames begin to spread.


	3. Stalk the Earth

Lee set out on foot in the direction Leoben had pointed. He should have gotten actual directions. Past the dunes were the struggling beginnings of a forest. Right now it was not much more than a few young trees trying desperately to survive, to make their way on a decimated poisoned planet. He could relate more than a little. If the whole place hadn't of been such a disappointment Lee might have been impressed with their tenacity, as it stood they just made him a little sad.

Beyond the grove were meadows and hills. He thought this planet must have been absolutely beautiful before it was killed by war. It showed him tiny glimpses of how nice it once had been, he wished they had gotten there thousands of years earlier. The quiet of this place was alarming. After spending years on various ships one becomes accustomed to the constant noise, even if it is just a whirring. Here there was no such noise. No birds, no creatures, only plant life and tiny microorganisms, and they weren't talking.

He smelled the fire before he saw it. Tillium burns hot and bright, but it also stinks to high heaven. Lee was suddenly worried that one of the raptors had somehow gone down without anyone noticing. He saw the smoke rising from behind a small rise in the land. Running towards it he felt soldier mode start to kick in. He regretted leaving behind his radio, but was sure someone by now knew that a ship was down.

Once he reached the crest he could see that no one had crashed, it was just a massive bonfire. He saw her sitting near it. She hugged her knees to her chest and just stared aimlessly into the fire. Her expression was hard to read, sadness, confusion, anger; it was all running together now.

Gods she was beautiful. Not by any traditional beauty standards. Gods knew Lee had been with far more beautiful women, but they were hollow, vapid, weak and often stupid. His pretty-boy looks seemed to attract just their type. Then there was Kara. When Zak introduced them he actually felt his breath hitch in his throat. This was _the_ Starbuck, the only pilot who beat him in flight scores, and she was remarkable. She was the kind of woman that got under your skin and you hoped she'd never leave. She cleaned up well too, but was at her prettiest when she didn't care. Long ago she crawled under Lee's skin, and no matter how many times he tried to claw her out, she stayed. Thoughts of her accompanied his dreams so many times he would wake up blushing, his wife beside him sleeping soundly, having no idea.

The last time the two of them found themselves alone, at night, on a new planet it had ended badly for his heart. He still couldn't deny that was one of the best nights of his life. He considered staying where he was, and just keeping an eye on her from afar. She just seemed off, and somehow almost forlorn.

Kara had looked and seemed off since she reappeared in that viper. Lee wasn't quite sure to make of her. He knew that this quest to find Earth had taken its toll on her. Still there was just something different that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

He headed down the small hill towards her. This was a move he would probably regret, because she would probably bite his head off for bothering her. There was also something about her that prevented him from just being a spectator in her life.

_Dear Reader(s): Do you like this? Am I on target? I promise this will start to pick up in the next chapter. I am laying ground work, establishing a universe. You know what I really love? REVIEWS!!! Help a writer out!! I'm rusty I need your encouragement!_


	4. Burn the Earth

She sat in silence. The only sounds were the occasional breeze rustling the grass and the crackling and spitting of the fire. It was a good thing there was plenty of tillium left in that ship. Somehow that wood had been damp and it spit its escaping water into the flames. The thought of rain crossed her mind. How she missed rainy spring and summer days on Caprica. This new place was no more cheerful than New Caprica, but at least it had post-nuclear war as an excuse. Her old life before the war seemed so far away. Maybe that was a life that happened to that body, but never to her.

She stared into the flames and wondered if that body, that person would greet her in the afterlife. Only cylons resurrected the last time she checked. Was that what she was? Wouldn't they have known what she was? Her husband was one of them after all. You'd think he would be able to sense it in her. Only 4 of the sacred final 5 had been revealed, was she the last piece of that puzzle? She didn't feel like a cylon, but she doubted Sam or Galen had felt it before they realized it. How else would you explain the name plate in her pack and the dog tags in her pocket?

The long grass rustled and she could hear small sticks give under weight. They had not seen any other life on this planet, so what or who was that? Was another Kara going to walk out of the ether and join her? How many copies of her were there? She stood up, pistol drawn and pointed in the direction of the sound. Her hand shook slightly, not from fear, but from exhaustion. Who or what was approaching her was doing so in darkness, when this planet when dark it didn't frak around.

"Kara?" She head Lee's familiar voice call to her. She uncocked the weapon and put it back in its holster.

"What Lee?" She asked as she sat back down, diminished that someone had found her. She was almost ready to just disappear into this place.

"What are you doing out here all by yourself?" He asked as he approached.

"Enjoying a campfire." She said with her trademark sarcastic smirk.

"Mind if I join you?" She could hear him walking on eggshells.

"Would it really matter if I did?"

Lee sat down next to her. He almost knocked over the jar of engine room wine she had balanced next to her. It had been a long time since she drank. Since she came back it was a more and more infrequent thing. On the Demetrius she was so single minded she barely remembered to eat. Doc Cottle said she had lost almost 15 pounds while she was away. She picked up the jar and drank back a few mouthfuls of the hooch. She offered the jar to Lee. She could feel it burn through her, she was losing her tolerance for the stuff. Kara Thrace, cheap drunk.

She laid back on her forearms and looked up to the sky.

"I thought it would have been like it was when we were on Kobol. The lush grass beneath our feet, clear skies, full of life. Instead it's all dead, everything." She said.

"I know what you mean." He looked her in the eye when he said it. If only he knew what she was really saying.

The fire burned very hot, but it felt good on both of them. Heat was never such a luxury on New Caprica.

They sat and laid there in silence for a while. Kara always enjoyed being with Apollo, because with him she could be still, silent, and he didn't mind. Sometimes she thought he just knew when it was best to be seen and not heard. He knew when to push and when to just exist.

Lee took a few more swigs from the jar, before handing it back to her. She could see the wine taking effect on him. The "wine" could have doubled as paint thinner & lamp oil. It was amazing no one had gone blind or died from drinking the stuff. It did its job though, and it did it much faster than even the finest ambrosia. It tasted like shit, but it worked for what ailed you. She had another sip and let the warmth of it make her insides match her outsides.

Lee was the first to break the silence again. "Did you find the signal's origin?"

Kara just stared up at the inky abyss. "Which answer do you want?"

"What do you mean? Either you found it or you didn't."

She sat up and stared him directly in the eye, "Things aren't that simple." She looked down and away.

"They rarely are." When she didn't look back up Lee pressed on, "Kara, talk to me."

"Didn't you think it was strange that the signal I picked up with the Viper was a Colonial Emergency Locator signal? I mean that it was recognized by our systems as such and everything?"


	5. Mound the Earth

**Authors Note: Since the two characters are now in the same place I am changing to a joint point of view. Sorry if it feels confusing after the first few chapters!!! Thanks for the reviews! I can't believe the positive response to this story; you all make me want to keep writing!!!**

Lee paused for more than a moment. It was something he hadn't taken the time to think about before now. "Kara, there was so much going on at the time I guess I really didn't think about it. We were just so relieved to have a possible way to Earth that I guess the how of all of it became irrelevant."

She sat in silence for a moment. He could hear her sigh. The spinning of his thoughts seemed to pick up speed. "How would something like this even happen? The implication is that a Colonial ship went down here. Maybe the other cylons found Earth first. We know that they still have a few of our raptors. Maybe this was a trap; they purposely crashed it here to draw us out. In the morning we should send out a few air-scouts to look for the wreckage." Lee rambled out thoughts as they occurred to him. "Then again, if that's the case why haven't they come for us yet? Maybe it was a scout of their own and they don't realize its missing yet."

"What if it wasn't a cylon that crashed?" She asked quietly.

"Like who? We would have noticed if someone had suddenly gone missing with a Colonial vessel. For a ship to end up this far away from the fleet without anyone noticing would be damned near impossible."

Kara was frustrated, sometimes Lee was a brilliant man, right now, he was as thick as the walls of a Battlestar. "I was missing."

"But you came back Kara. I mean, what, you dropped a beacon and then headed home? Did you land on earth and do that?"

"I don't think so, I mean, not exactly."

Lee noticed she was drifting away from him with her thoughts. She stood up and took another drink from the jar.

"I don't know Lee, I don't remember a lot of what happened. It's all pieces. I remember flying with you, and heading into the storm. You were calling me to come back, but I had this overwhelming feeling of peace, like someone was looking out for me like I would be safe no matter what happened. I felt unafraid of anything, and as I fell further and further away from you I fell into a light. It was beautiful, like the first rays of sun over the horizon. And then, nothing." She was pacing as she talked, like if she kept moving the memories would come back to her.

"You said you thought you were knocked out. Maybe you had a concussion."

"After that everything is pieces. Like glimpses of moments, like I am flipping through channels, some are empty, some are nothing but static and some have meaningful data. I don't remember being on the planet, I just remember being above it and knowing in my gut that this was Earth. There was a golden moon, just as described in the books of Pythia. I remember looking out and seeing Arelon, Tauron and Gemenon, just like in the Temple of Athena and I felt in my gut that this was home. I turned the ship in what I thought was a reciprocal heading, but I can't really be sure. Then it goes blank. Everything else I remember is like I am seeing it while being pulled backwards. An asteroid belt, a comet, a gas giant, the triple star, it's all just flashes." Kara rubbed the back of her head and neck.

"You've told me all of this before, and you were right. Those signs pointed our way here, or at least to the things we needed to find our way here. You weren't wrong; it's not your fault that the planet is a vast wasteland."

She handed him the jar.

"Lee, I have to show you something. I have no way to explain it, and I need someone else to see it to know that it's real." She bent down to her pack and pulled out a piece of metal. For a moment she looked at it in the fire's light. As she handed it to him she turned away.

The metal felt familiar, and once he really looked at it he could see what it was. "It's a name plate. Your name plate to be more precise."

"I know." She wouldn't look at him, and it worried him. Lee stood up, and rotated the plate in his hands.

"What's so special about it?" He could tell she was trying to get something out of her pocket. A moment later she passed him a set of dog tags with a silver ring joining them. "These are your dog tags. Kara, what you are getting at? Theatrics never were your strong suit."

As she turned to face him he could see tears streaming down her face, and she was holding a necklace out from her neck. It was identical to what he was holding in his hand. "What am I Lee?" She asked with a trembling lip.

He flipped the dog tags over in his hand and angled them toward the fire to see what they said **K Thrace 462753** "Where did you get these?" He walked toward her to examine the tags she wore on her body. They were the same, except the ones in his hand had faint traces of blood on them.

"I got them from me, or who I think was me."

Lee didn't know how to react to her statement. She was starting to get that lost look in her eye that he was pretty sure only he had ever seen. He wrapped his arms around her and felt her give to him. "What do you mean you got them from yourself? How is that even possible?"

She spoke slowly, muffled by his jacket only slightly, "I found a viper, the signal's point of origin. It was in pieces. I also found a pilot in it."

"One of our vipers?" He asked, his brow furiously scrunched.

"I think so. It had my tail number on it." She shifted in his arms. "I found the cockpit, and in it was a body in a flight suit. I reached in for the dog tags and when I pulled them out I noticed the pilot had blonde hair. The body was little more than bones & hair. Then I noticed that the tags were surprisingly similar to mine."

She was starting to shake, Lee held her closer.

"Leoben knew it was me. He panicked when I asked him what I was. I told him what his hybrid had told me and it's like he had seen a monster. He just upped and walked away."

"Maybe it's a cylon trick. They are capable of a lot of deception Kara."

"Why would they go to such extremes? I mean down to the tail numbers and Zak's ring on my tags?"

"I don't know." Lee was at a loss for words.

"What if I'm one of them. What if I'm some other kind of cylon we don't know about. One that doesn't need a resurrection ship to come back. I mean look at who the last 4 ended up being. How do we know that I'm not the missing cylon?"

"I don't know, and I don't care."

"You should care, what if some programming kicks in and I really do what the hybrid said."

"What did it say?"

"That I was the harbinger of death, that I would lead us all to our end."

"I'm sure that thing says a lot of other crazy shit too. That thing is frakked up Kara. I've heard about the lovely things it's said to others. It rambles, and it makes no sense. It only means anything if you give it meaning."

"It knew my name."

"All of them do, that thing listens to all of them, and so that means little." He could feel her pulling away. "The fact is Kara; I didn't care what had stepped out of that viper when you came back. As long as it looked like you and talked like you and had your memories, it was you. That's the only thing that mattered to me. "

"What if none of its real though? What if it's all implanted?"

"Does it feel real?"

"Yes, but sometimes I don't feel real."

"You feel very real to me." He pulled back and looked her straight in the eye, "You still feel like Kara, like home to me." When she tried to break his look he pushed forward and kissed her.

She lost her breath in him. His lips were hot and sweet and tasted exactly the same as they had the last time they had done this. She put her hand on the back of his neck and it fit exactly the same as it always had. Her body fit against him as it always had. In this moment she felt the most alive she had since she came back.


	6. Bind the Earth

**A/N: I'm going to admit, some of this was influenced by listening to The Cure's Lovesong way too much. Death Cab for Cutie has an excellent cover. Check it out if you want to have an idea of what was going through my head! Also, I am working on dialing down the angst, cos this has quickly gone from just standard angst to **_**angst**_**. I promise the story will lighten up a bit now! Keep the reviews coming! Thanks to everyone who has favorited this story!!!**

Lee had intended to kiss her chastely, to give her a small kiss of reassurance. It started that way, but now he could feel her need, her hunger and her desperation start to consume it. His hand tangled into the back of her head, and an arm slipped beneath the jacket to pull her in to his body. She tightly gripped the coat he had on.

She broke the kiss, pulled away breathless. She untangled herself from his grip and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. The gesture hurt him, but he knew what to expect with Kara.

"Only you Lee." She said with a small smile and a shaking of her head. He could see a slight light in her eyes that had been sadly missing for months.

Lee crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back a bit, "What do you mean?" He replied with a small chuckle.

"There's just something about you, there's always been something different about you."

"Well I do put up with a lot of your shit." He smirked.

"You aren't afraid of me. Never once. Hell, I've even scared the shit out of the Old Man, but never you. Sam, gods, Sam the CYLON is scared of me. I can feel it when he looks at me, when he touches me. Like one false move will be the end of him."

Lee interrupted, "Kara I really don't want to hear about you and Sam…"

"That's not what I mean. When he touches me, it feels like this empty gesture. Like he's doing it because it's what he's supposed to do, not because it's what he wants to do. It's so empty, hollow. When I first came back I think it was genuine, but the longer I'm back the falser it feels. You're the only one who really touches me. You can brush past me in a hallway and my body burns. I can feel your gaze across a room full of people. Sometimes I think I know it even before you do."

Lee Adama knew better than to intrude on Kara when she was in a sharing mood. She turned to face the fire.

"The only time I've felt alive since I came back, the only time I feel like myself, is when I'm alone with you."

There were times when the only thing Lee wanted to do was sweep her up in his arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay, that he would protect her, that he alone would love her they way she was always meant to be loved. This was one of those times, but he knew she wouldn't stand for it and he resisted the urge. Instead he opted to purge some of his own feelings.

"When you were gone, it felt like I died a little inside. Everyone reacted differently. Dad and Anders took to the bottle, the latter making a right ass of himself more than once." Lee smirked a bit remembering Anders on the flight deck. "I was envious of them, because at least they could feel something enough to stop feeling bad. All I felt was lost and empty…" His words trailed off as did his glance.

"It had started to fall apart a long time before that, but that was the last straw for Dee. She had always been a poor substitute for you, but I think she knew that without you around I would never really be happy again. She knew she had made me happy a handful of times, but your shadow loomed so hugely over it. Frak, the day I asked her to be my wife was in retaliation to you marrying Sam. She said she would be happy to have me until you took my heart back."

Something deep in the fire popped off a few times. Kara looked at it, startled, but far from surprised.

"I suppose there's a Viper in that inferno, a pilot too." He took a moment to absorb what he was saying. "That's pretty poetic for you, a plane becoming its pilot's pyre. An artist yes, but I never took you for a poet."

She smiled at that. She looked back at him, he was kicking the dirt around, and he ran his hand through his hair. A hand that was suspiciously missing something.

"Where's your ring?" She asked, looking at the ground around him to see if it had fallen off.

"Probably being recycled into munitions."

A quizzical look passed over Kara's face.

"Dee filed for divorce; the paperwork went through a few days ago. With all the craziness I guess I didn't get a chance to tell you."

"Does the Admiral know?"

"Of course, he had to sign off on it, because she's an officer and I'm a former officer." He looked over at her, "It's not like you've been wearing yours. When did you stop?"

"When Hotdog told me about Anders sleeping with that frakking toaster Tory, and all the other women. Well, and I heard all about his nights down at Joe's and the flirting. Hotdog really has a big mouth, don't trust him with anything." She looked up at the sky, "Things were done with us before I went missing, by the time he moved to the Salpica we were over."

"But when you came back I thought things were better."

"Sam's loyal, I'll give him that. He's loyal like a dog, and is capable of being a pretty frakking rabid dog. We are better off as friends. He never wanted to settle for being second best. Anyways he deserves more than that. Maybe now he and Tory can have little toasters, or he'll knock up a Six or an Eight, he's always had an eye for them."

"Really?"

"No, but it's what I tell myself to feel better."

Kara walked over to a pile of wood and started throwing more on the fire. Lee went over and offered her a hand.

"I guess we won't be touring Kara Thrace's home of the future here."

"What future? This place makes New Caprica look like a vacation spot." Her trademark wittiness had returned. Lee noticed that in the few hours they had been together she was returning to her old self.

She went over and took another gulp out of the jar, it was almost empty.

"Looks like you're running low on degreaser."

"Why Lee Adama, if I didn't know better, I would say the great and mighty Apollo was disappointed that he can't get a girl drunk." She said as she shot back the rest of the liquid.

"More like it's cold as frak out here and that stuff at least warms you up temporarily." The chill in the air was increasing as the night progressed.

"No fear, as a soldier, I come prepared!" She announced as she pulled another larger jar out of her pack.

"Gods Kara, how long were you planning to be here?"

"It takes the edge off of dealing with Leoben, and it's a good disinfectant. I didn't know what I'd be running into out here."

Lee could see that already she was visibly intoxicated. Give Chief credit, the stuff is fast.

He took the fresh jar from her hand. "It would seem this new body isn't as broken in as the last one. Are you getting drunk already?"

Always full of brass and balls, she scoffed at him. "You sir, I think have had too much to drink!"

Lee picked up the empty jar and poured some in, he handed the jar to her. "I think this would be an appropriate time for a toast." She held up the jar with a wavering hand.

"To broken marriages!" He announced.

"To broken planets!" She proclaimed.

"To returning from the dead!"

"To being President for about 5 minutes!" She laughed.

"To Lee and Kara!" He offered.

"To Starbuck and Apollo!" She retorted.

They clanked their glasses together and drank. Kara cleared the jar of its contents and threw it into the fire. The glass shattered and quickly began to bubble in the heat of the burning tillium and wood. She wiped her mouth with the sleeve she had previously used to wipe him away. He screwed the lid back onto the jar and set it back down. In those few moments he had made up his mind.

She could see the intent in his eyes. He walked towards her with a purpose. Kara stifled a giggle, his face was so serious. She admitted to herself, maybe, just maybe she was a little drunk. When Lee Adama, when Apollo, set his mind to something there was no derailing him, no matter what you thought. She saw the pilot in him right now, the CAG, not some politico, he meant business, whatever that business was.

He grabbed her by her upper arms and looked her straight in the eye. "What's stopping us now?" His tone sounded as if he had come to an epiphany.

She snorted, "From doing what?"

"Being together." She could feel his breath on her cheek as he replied into her ear. His voice was low, serious, as if he was trying to keep someone from hearing him.

"We know this won't work."

"Kara it's been the end of the frakking world, you might have died here, our only hope was pinned on a dead planet, and we keep coming back to each other. That tells me everything I need to know."

He didn't give her a chance to answer. His mouth was on hers before she could register to think. This time he wasn't chaste, wasn't even close. He knew deep down inside that he was the only man who could ever properly kiss Kara Thrace. Her knees faltered slightly, which gave her away. Hungrily he probed her mouth with his tongue. She sucked on his bottom lip with just enough teeth to make him see stars. Every time he kissed her he knew she was the only woman he was ever meant to kiss.

She could feel his intention this time around. The last kiss was for comfort, this one was pure need.


	7. Scorch the Earth

**A/N This chapter begins the decent into R and most probably NC-17 territory. I had intended to get this all into one chapter, but it just didn't work out that way. I'm wordy, what can I say? Please keep the reviews coming in!! They inspire me to hurry the frak up!!! Enjoy.**

The last time they had found themselves in a situation like this it started out as a game. She had been playing with him, she was drunk, and instead of thinking she had relied on instinct. Her instincts were telling her right now that this was what she was meant to be here for. This was precisely the sort of moment she had been brought back for. One thing dying will give you is incredible insight. Kara went to move her arms, to wrap them around him but he wouldn't release his grip on her. She tried to twist out of his hold, but it only resulted a stuttering moment of awkward kissing.

"Stop fighting me Kara." He growled at her intensely.

"I wasn't." She looked in his eyes and saw something she had never seen before at least around her, control. She had seen it on the flight deck and had heard it in his voice when he was in his viper. She heard it when he was in the Ready Room (not initially, but it eventually came to him). He had never been able to muster it up in her presence in circumstances like this. The indulgent child within her wanted to rile him up and see how far he'd take it; did Lee Adama have the courage of his convictions?

He slid his hands down her arms to her wrists. His intention wasn't to hurt her, or scare her, but to show her who lurked beneath his surface. He knew she had a monster in her, hell, everyone knew that. What she didn't know is that inside of him, a similar creature dwelled. Chief's Engine Room Wine made it harder to control himself, especially around the one person who could simultaneously irritate the hell out of him and still kill him with a smile. That night on New Caprica she had called the shots, and he had seen how well that ended for him. Even when they were having their fun, she had the control and she used it on the algae planet to once again keep him in line. He wasn't Samuel Anders, he wasn't the kind of guy who would take that kind of treatment over and over and over again. He wasn't a frakking machine and it was about time she saw that.

"You stay right there." When he said it she knew he wasn't frakking around, still she had to stop herself from making some Starbuck comment about not needing obedience training.

Lee rummaged through the pack Helo had given him. He had never been an infantry man so he had no idea what the contents would be. Finally he came upon two wool blankets packed at the very bottom of the pack. He laid one down and set the other to the side.

"Sit."

"Is that an order sir?" She mocked.

"I am a former commander, and was Commander in Chief too." With his arms crossed over his chest, he smiled, it was devilish, but it still made her feel like she was still with her Lee. She walked, no, stumbled slightly over to the blanket and plopped down. There was little by means of elegance in her moves.

"Now what?" She asked with a smile and a slight wink.

"Now you shut up for once," he said as he kneeled next to her, "and let me take point on this one Lieutenant."

He was agile, how, he so quickly pinned her down she would never know. He held her hands above her body. He was the cat to Sam's dog. Everyone knows you don't piss off a cat on purpose. She didn't fight him; she knew she was done fighting him for a long time.

He slid his body down hers at full length, and as he slid back up to her mouth he kissed her. It took all the breath she had left in her. He wanted to mark her as his own. A tiny moan escaped as his tongue slowly slid between her lips. He could feel her resistance breaking down, he felt her succumb to him. He was either this imposing or she really wanted him to take her, it didn't matter either way. He explored her mouth at will and she let him. She wanted so badly to touch his face, to thread her fingers through his hair, to pull his neck into her, she tried once, but he held her steadfastly in place. Lee was having his way, and she was enjoying his way.

The pressure of his mouth on hers was intense. She could feel his heart pounding away above her as their kissing became more erratic, desperate. They were both reclaiming something that had been just beyond their grasp. She sucked on his bottom lip grazing it just slightly with her teeth eliciting a growl from within him. Surprisingly she could feel him hardening, she had barely touched him, she couldn't even get that great of an angle on him the way she was laying.

She moved beneath him, to spread her legs and let his nestle between them. They were pawing and grinding away at each other like teenagers. Her legs instinctively wrapped around his thighs giving her the chance to raise her hips to meet him. Finally Lee broke the kiss and started running his mouth down her neck. When he found where her pulse was strongest he bit her. Not hard enough to make a mark, but hard enough to make her breath catch in her throat. His tongue ran over the spot and he felt her arching her neck into it. His nose brushed her ear slightly and it sent tingles down her spine. Every touch between them made her feel more and more alive. An arm wrapped beneath her arching back and he pulled her into him. "Kara" he said as rose to his knees. She shifted slightly so he could cross his legs beneath her. He slid his hands up her arms, and moved to push her coat off her shoulders. He kissed the lone exposed collarbone, and she ground into him. It might be cold on this planet, but he would have Kara Thrace naked or not at all. While she shrugged out of the coat, he did the same.

If he could have eaten her with his eyes, she was pretty sure she wouldn't be there anymore. She knew exactly where this was going to end up, so she saved him the trouble and removed her tanks and what sufficed for a bra. She reached up to start undoing the buttons on his dress shirt. While Kara had always found a man in uniform sexy, she actually thought Lee in a suit was one of the hottest things she had seen. Her fingers moved deftly from button to button. If they had been on the ship she would have just ripped them off and let laundry service deal with them, but they were out in the wilds, and she didn't feel like looking for buttons in the morning. Beneath them he wore his standard issue military tanks. _Once a soldier always a soldier, so he was in uniform after all_ she thought. She ran her hands up his sides until he pulled the bottom hem up and over his head.

Once she was topless he took a moment just to look down and see her, she arched her back slightly, putting her hands on the earth behind her, exposing herself fully to him. She was magnificent, muscular but she still retained a feminine softness. There were curves and silken skin, and two perfect breasts topped with small pink nipples. Her chest was heaving from the activity and he couldn't be sure if it was the chill or her arousal that had her nipples rock hard. In the end it didn't matter. While he ran his hands from her navel up to her breasts he looked into her hazel eyes until they closed as his hands did around her breasts.

Leaning back and looking at his bare chest, she was thankful she missed seeing Apollo's fat stage, because she wasn't sure if that was something she could scrub from her mind easily. Her eyes closed on their own when he grabbed her. She slowly pulled herself back toward him, rolling her hips into him and her hands moved easily up his strong arms to his shoulders. She could feel them flex and move beneath her hands as he rolled each nipple between his fingers, she lolled her head back and groaned under the feeling of it. Quickly she grabbed his neck and pulled him hard onto her mouth. She mauled him like she had once in the pilot's quarters. She wanted to melt her body into his; she wanted him to smother her. She wrapped her arms around him tightly, pulling him as close to her as she could.


	8. Pound the Earth

**Authors Note: This chapter it nothing but smut, pure unadulterated smut. It's rated NC-17 for sure. Frak or Fight right? Well this is the former. Thanks for all the reviews (Melodi, I promise to get your cards out ASAP, but as you can see I have been a little absorbed!), keep 'em coming. Only one or two chapters left to this one (my first completed story like ever!), so I thank you for all your encouragement!**

He pulled back slightly to catch his breath. As he did she nuzzled his neck and licked and nibbled her way back up to his jaw. She ran a hand down his chest to cup him over his pants. They were thin and she could feel the heat radiating off of him. After a few light strokes, temptation, she moved her hand up to undo his belt. He stopped her, moving her hand back onto him. She could feel his thickness fill her hand and she flexed her hand around him as best she could. He shivered.

Feverishly he reached down and started undoing her pants. He knew if he didn't hurry up he wouldn't last very much longer. Just the thrill of her hand on him, possessing him, was enough to make him come hard. For all his thoughts of control, his own self control hadn't crossed his mind. Now it was at the forefront and he needed to move this along more quickly. As he pushed his hand into her pants he could feel that her military issue underthings were soaked. Her scent engulfed him and he wanted nothing more than to dive into it. He grabbed at the waist band to both and realized this wasn't going to work.

He pushed her backwards more violently than he had intended. She hit the blanket covered earth with a thud. "Oh Gods, Kara…" he started, and then she laughed. She laughed a whole hearted Starbuck laugh, which would have turned someone who didn't know her soft, and he proceeded working her pants off her hips. Awkwardly she tried to grab at a boot to untie it, but Lee had already realized they had to go. He pulled loose the ties and haphazardly threw the boots to the side, and finally pulling the remains of her clothes off. She laid before him like a goddess, as if Aphrodite herself had come back to life just to lay with him.

Kara shyly raised a leg to obscure his view. It wasn't because of shame; it was because she had never really felt this naked before. He ran a hand up her bent leg, crawling towards her, pushing it open and over his shoulder. He kissed the inside of her other thigh before raising that one to straddle his other shoulder. She could feel his breath on her wetness, he left a trail a small kisses from her hip to where she parted. Base instincts were taking her over and she raised her hips up inviting him to do what she was desperate for him to do.

When she raised her hips to his mouth he pulled back a bit and lightly tapped her on the ass. He looked up to her eyes and gave her a tsk tsk. Just because she wanted something didn't mean she was going to get it. Instead he ran three fingers down her, the middle one bumping her clit just so, the other two opening her to him. He inserted one and then two fingers into her, slightly pumping them while curling them against her front wall. He could see her hands were clenching and unclenching at her sides. Slowly he descended on her first with a brush of his lips, moving to the tip of his tongue, and finally massaging her with his tongue. She was starting to buck against him, so he sped up his hand and pulled her nub into his mouth and subtly moaned into it. The vibrations were just enough to send her over the edge into ecstasy, she started to shake and a hand came down on his head. She was moaning and writhing and gripping his hair in her hands. "Lee" she groaned through gritted teeth, he felt her shudder, once, twice. Then he felt her relax, and her hands gently pull him over her body. "Mmm that was nice." She said hazily as she rubbed small circles into the nape of his neck, and brought her mouth up to kiss him.

She only needed a few moments to compose herself. The fabric of his pants, while thin, felt like sandpaper against her body. She blamed the afterglow for her heightened sense of feeling. How she always ended up naked first never ceased to amaze her. She could feel his cock pushing against her, and immediately needed him out of his pants. She reached back down the buckle and this time he didn't stop her. She started to feel the heat building back up in her belly. The button slipped in her fingers, and she felt at klutzy as a virgin. Finally the button backed out of its home, the zipper came down and she blindly tried to push his pants down. He was going commando, she had heard rumors that when not in uniform, he did so. A slight "huhn" escaped her lips as she tried to move his pants down off his ass.

He reached back with a hand to finish what she started and as he did she grasped him. Her grip was firm, as she pulled her hand up and back down. A class act until the very end she brought the hand up and spit into it, returning to where it came from, now hot, and slick. She was adept as she pulled up and ran her palm across the head and back down. Her fingers barely made it around him to meet on the other side, and when she pushed down they didn't even come close. She started twisting her hand as she pushed and pulled him.

She had to stop, if she didn't he wouldn't even make it inside of her, and he had to make it inside of her. He grabbed her hand and moved back above her head. He grabbed the other and secured it with the first. "No more of that." He said sternly but quietly into her ear. She giggled, and his other hand came down swiftly on what was exposed of her ass. "Not funny." The look of surprise that crossed her face was perfect. He doubted anyone had ever told her what to do in bed and punished her for not obeying.

"I want you inside of me" she whined against his neck. She even bit him lightly before he caught her mouth again with hers and kissed her hard.

He rubbed the tip of his cock against her clit. She was still slick and he could feel her squirm beneath him, try to pull her arms down. She was testing him, seeing if he'd keep his grip on her and he only clamped down on her harder. With Dee this had always been the precarious point of their relations. She wanted him to enter her slowly, and she would just lie there, waiting for him to slip in. He hated that. So he did exactly what he wanted this time, he drove into Kara hard and fast. He heard a yelp catch in her throat and saw her eyes go big, her body tensed beneath him, he didn't move again until she relaxed a bit. Then his pulled out and did it again, she gasped. He deeply inhaled her scent. If he could have he would have driven her into this dead planet to bring it back to life.

Her wrists hurt; he was using them as leverage to push into her, she wanted desperately to rake her nails down his back. He rammed into her hard, by the third time she anticipated it and met him, letting him get in even deeper. It felt positively amazing, world shattering. Lee had never treated her like this, like she had longed to be treated. "No touching." He grunted in her ear as he released her hands, she didn't dare move them no matter how badly she wanted to.

He pulled her knees up to his chest, to change the angle. He smashed his mouth back on hers settling into an easy rhythm. Her feet rested on his hips. He was rubbing just enough against her clit to keep her slightly shaky. Her knee started to ache, so she took a chance and straightened out the leg, he didn't say she couldn't move. Under normal circumstances she wasn't this flexible, now full of adrenaline, she felt like she could be twisted into any position. He knew what had been hurting on her so he crossed the other leg over the already straightened one and pushed them onto his shoulder. Towering over her, he could see everything; he even stole a glance of what it looked like when he entered her. He looked her straight in the eyes, the fire within him reminded her of the storm she flew that viper into, the storm that killed her, brought her corpse to rest here. He was absolutely intent on her, and on frakking the hell out of her. This wasn't sex, this was a full on unadulterated frak. He filled her completely, when he was in her she felt at home.

Tiny grunts and moans were stuttering out of her, he pushed she moaned he pushed again she grunted. It was getting in his head and he just wanted to hear more of it, he wanted to make these prima sounds escape her. His rhythm was becoming quicker and he was having difficulty staying in it. He couldn't believe how quickly he was hitting the edge; he pulled one leg in front of him so he could finish by burying himself between her legs. She could see how erratic his moves were getting and reached out to loop her arms under his. She could steady him this way, help him. He started to hit that spot within her that would send her tumbling over the edge. "Gods, Lee" she got out with the most deliciously desperate tone in her voice, she was begging him. She was holding her breath when the tiniest contractions started to emanate from within her. He clutched at her shoulders and started buck into her, once, twice, and then he just fell upon her. She could feel him twitching inside of her, and tightened herself on him, fluttering against his final throes, he moaned.

They were both panting heavily, but their breaths were in synch. He was smothering her body; she wrapped her arms around him drawing lazy circles on his shoulders. She lightly kissed his neck and nuzzled her face into his neck. He smelled of salt, and booze and sex, it was the greatest smell in the world.

He slipped out of her once he was no longer hard. Reaching beside him he grabbed the other blanket, and clumsily moved it over the two of them. He did not roll off of her.

"Lee?" She squeaked, "I can't breathe."

"Now you know how I feel without you." He said quietly as he shifted the bulk of his weight off of her. She turned her body and pulled the blanket over them more appropriately. Protectively she curled against him wrapping a leg and an arm around him. If Kara wanted to possess him, he was hers to take. He extended an arm beneath her neck, but she used his chest as her pillow.

"That was…" She was speechless, he loved it. He wrapped his other arm around her and kissed the top of her head.

"Amazing? A revelation? Mind Blowing?" He offered her suggestions.

"Yeah, that." She said nonspecifically.

"Kara?" he asked.

"Yeah?" he could hear the sleep in her voice.

"Next time you better not move when I tell you not to. You won't get away with that sort of behavior twice, not with me." She could hear the smile in his voice and he could feel hers. She squeezed her leg against him in recognition of the fact.

The fire was starting to die down, and as much as they tried, they couldn't fight sleep.


	9. Down to Earth

**Author's Note: I'm glad so many of you enjoyed the last chapter. I was totally hesitant about leaving it as, err, graphic as it was, but now I am glad I did. Here we return to angst, angst, angst, angst. With this chapter I also debated just how to put it together, but have decided to just throw it out there and see what the lot of you think (I know it's a bit confusing, Lee is Night and Kara is Day, I hope this hint helps!)! Thanks again, we're almost at the end!**

****NIGHT****

Lee barely slept. He dozed off shortly after she did, but he awoke well before dawn. She was still wrapped around him, making small noises in her sleep. He had never noticed that before. As he stroked her hair he realized how soft it was. So many things about Kara were hard and masculine, but so many more were feminine, they just weren't things she advertised.

He stared up into the sky above him and was shocked to see stars. This late in the night the ground and atmospheric temperatures must have met and let the sky clear. It was just as beautiful as it was in the temple, like a million tiny lights flickering above them. Looking up he saw the Lagoon Nebula faintly, the nebula that lead them down the perilous path to where they were right now. He silently thanked that road marker, for it lead him here, back to her.

Kara sighed and rolled over off of him. As she did he felt her warmth pass, and most of the blanket. He should have figured her for a blanket hog, she hogged everything else. He stretched out and felt the earth with his toes. It was damp and cold, but in a decidedly terrestrial way. His hands reached behind him to grasp the long grasses behind him. At night the meadow almost seemed like any autumnal meadow on Caprica. Sleep was something that just wasn't coming back to him. The fire was dying down, and there were parts that no matter how much wood they added would never be fully consumed.

As much as he didn't want to leave her, he knew he had to. There were things that were better done by dark of night than light of day. Things that he had to do. He pulled on his clothes and boots. Looking through the pack Helo had given him he found a flash light. The cylons and humans had been excavating on the beach and the supplies he would need would be there. There was still enough light from the fire to guide him back to here, back to her. He bent down and kissed Kara on the temple; she reached up and pawed him away. He couldn't help but laugh to himself on that one.

*****DAY*****

"Captain Thrace, Captain Thrace, do you read?" The sound of Helo's voice was coming from somewhere; of course finding that somewhere was difficult with your eyes closed. Kara felt around for her pack to find the wireless walkie hanging off of it. "Godsdamnit Starbuck are you there?" Helo was losing his patience. Either the world was ending or Hera kept him up all night, it was hard to tell these days.

"Captain Thrace here." She said, and sunk back down into the covers as she released the button.

"Do you know where Lee is, did he find you?" There was urgency in his voice.

"Yeah, he's right…" She started as she rolled over to find, absolutely nothing. "Erm, he was here, but I don't know where he is." The disappointed tone in her voice gave her away and she knew it. She didn't care though, Helo had known her a lot longer than Lee, and seen her through way worse than being abandoned. She reached her hand over to the spot and it was cold, he hadn't just sneaked off to relieve himself, no, he had been gone for quite some time. _Touché Lee, Touché_ she thought to herself.

"I need you to find him, and now, otherwise I'll send a unit of marines or a raptor to find him."

"What's the frakking rush Helo? It's not like it's the end of the world, cos that happened a long time ago here." She squinted, it wasn't sunny out, but it was bright, the sun reflected off the atmospheric dust to light up this miserable place. Where were her clothes, she wondered as she remembered she was naked, although it's not like half the marines hadn't seen her that way anyways.

"Kara, it's just…" there was something else in his voice, what was it? She couldn't quite put a finger on it. "Something's happened up here, and we need to speak with him immediately."

Kara's mind immediately wandered to the worst case scenario. Did the old man die? Did the president? It seemed to her those would be the only two real important things that could happen which Lee would be needed for, that and maybe her own death, but here she was alive, well, alone, and talking to Helo. If that had happened surely Helo would have told her.

"If I see him I'll let him know to call in." As she rolled back towards her pack she saw her clothes neatly folded and piled near her pack. Next to it was an opened bottle of water and an algae bar. She never took him as the love 'em and leave 'em type (except for with the hookers, and why that man ever paid for what he could readily get for free looking like he did was beyond her), the care he put into starting her morning off decently only proved her right.

She held the blanket around her as she stood up to dress. There was one thing missing, her underwear. Well, it wouldn't be the first time she went home without them. She shrugged her gear on, but kept the blanket wrapped around her. This planet was damp in the morning and the cold seeped into your bones. Plus, it smelled like Lee.

She looked over where the pyre had been the night before. Everything was gone. No ash, no burn ring, no remnants, nothing. For a moment she almost panicked, wondering if she hadn't hallucinated the whole event. It quickly dawned on her what had actually happened, _Frakkin' Lee, cleaned up another of my messes._ She thought, but where was he? While there were rolling hills around the area, they weren't exactly large enough to hide anyone. Behind her stood a lone forked tree, how anything of its size thrived here was beyond her understanding. Maybe this dead old rock was coming back from the dead; at least it was something she could relate to.


	10. Here on Earth

**A/N: This chapter is LONG, I apologize, but also, a lot happens in it. So enjoy! Also I do reply to reviews, so if you leave me an awesome one, you will get a reply!**

The sky was just starting to lighten up when he got the fire out. What was still recognizable he dragged off with the gloves he had also stolen from the excavation team (if they could withstand radiological materials then burning debris should be no problem). With the shovel in one hand and the salvageable pieces in the other he moved all around the meadow burying the evidence.

She had always joked when he threatened to kill her that he wouldn't know frak all about hiding the body. She was most definitely wrong. He was careful, lifting dead grasses and digging beneath them, burying the object, recovering it and then recovering it like nothing had been disturbed. From the air no one would see that anything had happened, if anyone happened to fly by.

Near the bottom of the fire pit he found rivets that must have belonged to her flight suit. Apparently some parts of the suit really were indestructible. As he mixed and shifted ash into soil he heard a different sort of metal hit the shovel, and bent down to investigate. He immediately recognized what he saw. Wings. Senior Flight Officer Wings. Near them he also found her diamond shaped Captain's pips. Holding the small objects in his hands he could see on the back where the thin posts had melted into the back of the pin. He had a moment of reservation, where these Starbuck's pins? They looked Colonial even with their slightly melted corners.

He looked over at the sleeping shape behind him. If that woman wasn't Kara Thrace then who or what ever made her deserved some sort of award. It walked and talked, smelled and tasted, kissed and touched exactly like the woman he had been with on New Caprica, the woman who's bunk he used to smell when she was away, the woman who he always met on the flight deck after every landing, the woman in the blue dress on Colonial Day, the woman he had visited so many times in the brig, the woman who could fly circles around everyone (including himself), the woman whom he sent his wife to rescue on the algae planet, the woman who had his heart, his mind and the woman who caused ever fiber in his being to mourn when that, this, ship blew up. He slipped the metal pieces, the tiny relics of a no longer relevant being, into his pocket and resolved that they would go the way of his wedding band. He wished he could have stolen the name plate and tags from her so they would meet a similar fate. That way he wouldn't ever have to think about it, because whoever these had belonged to no longer existed. The only Kara Thrace in his universe was over there, wrapped in grey wool, occasionally mumbling, rolling over and kicking out in her sleep.

By the time he had finished hiding the evidence it was almost fully bright out. There was no sunrise on Earth, just a part of the day that was brighter than it was at night. Soon the excavation teams would be stumbling out of their tents, looking forward to another day of uncovering the destruction and near mass grave the beach had been. He had to get the supplies back before someone noticed they were gone, on a dead planet there were only so many places that such things could end up and he wanted to remain as far under the dradis as possible.

*****

From his perch he could see down to her. A few times he thought she might be dead, but just when the suspicion was high enough she would move or pull the covers over her head, and he would feel a sense of relief. Kara had never been a morning person, and he didn't dare wake her.

He could see so much more of this place from here. There were subtle mountains further in from the coast. Once they must have been amazing mountain ranges, but now he could see some areas that had been irreversibly damaged by ordinates. At one end though he could have sworn he saw the Gates of Hera, but decided it was his mind playing tricks on him, or just a function of the dreary light. Maybe it was wishful thinking to hope that the 13th tribe not only looked for a place where they saw their 12 brothers in the sky, but that had homes for their gods too. Maybe the stories were wrong and Kobol met a similar fate to this place. No grand exodus, just a holocaust, and the remaining survivors fleeing to the first habitable place they could find.

On Caprica he would have figured this tree to be 50, maybe 75 years old. It was sturdy, even if forked from the ground. Here with the radiation it may have taken longer for it to grow to this size. He remembered being a boy at military school and the experiments they did on irradiated seeds. They took longer to germinate and only the strongest survived. Thin shelled seeds never grew but the thicker and tougher the skin the more likely they were to not only sprout, but thrive and become something beautiful. The notion reminded him of someone he knew very well.

When he finally looked back to her she was up. She was fully dressed but still wrapped in the blanket. _How long had he daydreamed up here?_ He wondered. She was pacing back and forth over where the fire had been. She was kicking the dirt, and looking around. What did she expect to see? Did she really think he would just leave the heavy lifting and carnage hiding to her? If this were a crime he was a fully committed accomplice. Then she started scanning the horizon, probably looking for him.

"Kara!" He bellowed toward her as he shook a tree branch. She looked up, and a sly smile crossed her face. She started to saunter up to him. Lee jumped from his perch to meet her.

"Enjoying the view?" She said in a way that could only be considered pure Starbuck. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.

"Always." She could hear the smile in his voice.

"Have a nice morning?" She asked reciprocating the embrace.

"I didn't run off and get married if that's what you're asking me."

"I see you were busy." She nudged her head toward the empty space.

"Someone has to hide the evidence, I figured you built the pyre, at least I could spread the ashes."

"It wasn't your evidence to hide." He could hear a tinge of ire in her voice.

"I don't know how many times I have to explain this to you, but I love you, and I want to be a party to all your crimes from here on out." He lightly joked and kissed her forehead.

"Yeah." Was all she could half-heartedly muster up.

"Don't sound so thrilled Kara; you might build up an ego in a guy."

They just stood there for a minute, at least it only felt like a minute.

She had gathered herself back up and pulled away. Looking at him with her "nothing's bothering me" wide eyed look and smile she asked, "So how's the view up there, really."

"Desolate, but beautiful."

"Kinda like me?" She asked with a cock of the head. She turned and walked up to the tree. "Gods, it's been so long since I've climbed one of these. When's the last time we were on a planet that actually had trees? Was that Kobol?"

"Kara, don't go up there. Don't we have to head back to the beach?" He sounded nervous, almost anxious.

"What Lee? You scared I'm gonna fall down and kill myself? Seems like if that happens here I'll just raise from the dead." She joked as she started to climb up to the same place he had been. He scrambled up the other side. "Wow, what a beautiful view." She proclaimed open mouthed as she let her legs swing beneath her as she sat on the branch.

"Yeah."

"Gods, this looks so familiar."

He pointed to the end of the range, "That looks like the gates of Hera."

"They sort of do." Both of them looked to the crest of the mountain where the temple of Athena was on Kobol, only a pock mark from a large bomb remained. "Or maybe not, probably just war damage. The mountains on Caprica were pretty trashed too."

They sat in silence for a moment, mentally memorizing this place. Not a single person had laid foot on this planet in 2,000 years, so they felt like they owed it to the place.

"Frak, I forgot to tell you, Helo was on the radio, you've got to call up to Galactica."

"Did he say why?"

"No, but it sounded pretty frakkin' important, the comm. is in my pack."

Lee climbed down. "You coming?"

"I'll be down in a minute, I just want to take it all in." She smiled sweetly at him as he hit earth with his feet. "Lee?"

"Yeah Kara?" He looked up and his eyes were the bluest things she had ever seen. The grays and golds of this planet only made his eyes pop with life. If she could have paint the color of his eyes, she'd paint the whole world with it.

"I just want you to know, what I said before I disappeared, about not being afraid anymore, well I meant it. I'm not afraid of loving you or being loved."

"I know." He replied with a smile that melted her insides.

Lee walked down the hill and she ran her hand over the branch she sat on. She looked over her shoulder to see him almost to the pack and pulled a pocket knife out. Quickly she started to carve into the branch **KARA + LEE **a heart around it would have been just a little too cheesy for her. It only took a few minutes as she wasn't using their full first names (Karaline and Leland just sounded like two old people). When she was done she climbed down and headed back to Lee.

*****

Lee picked up the comm. and called back on the last frequency it received. "Major, I mean Lee Adama here." He still hadn't overly adjusted to private life, and it was still difficult to not think of himself as Major Lee Adama. He called over the channel two more times. If it had been that important you'd think someone would respond. He wondered if Kara was only making it sound important so he would leave her alone.

"Lee, its Karl." Helo was using proper names, that was never a good sign, Lee swallowed hard and responded.

"I heard you were looking for me."

"Yeah, well, something happened up here last night. It's Anastasia." Helo sounded worried, but Lee didn't catch it.

Of course, the ex-wife had done something. Lee sighed, "What'd she do now?"

"Lee, she's, uh, well, she's dead." Helo's voice dropped as he said the words.

The air in his lungs felt like it had been vented. "What? Who did it?" Lee sounded exasperated and confused. She might have been his ex, but if someone did this to her, well, they'd better be in the brig by now or he'd be really hiding a body down here.

"That's the thing Lee," Helo paused, not sure how to say it, "she did it."

Lee's head was spinning, yes Dee had come from one of the more religious tribes, but she had never been particularly religious, still she thought suicide was the sort of thing that didn't land you in Elysium, nor Hades, you hung somewhere in between, for eternity.

"No, no she didn't they just made it look that way." Lee wouldn't believe it unless there were witnesses. "Was someone there, did someone see something?"

"Gaeta was there, he was leaving the officer's quarters. He thought she was in good spirits. She had gone down to Joe's after watching Hera for Sharon and me. Everyone said she was her normal, chatty, Dee self. Someone even thought she was flirting with one of the guys from Dogsville behind the bar. She came back and was changing; Gaeta even had a good conversation with her. As he was leaving she just picked up the gun, and well, did it. Felix and Diana did everything they could to stabilize her before the Doc got there. She died on the stretcher on the way to Life Station." _Now_ he could hear how upset Helo was by this.

Helo was concerned for the silence. "Lee, are you okay?"

Lee was lost in his head when Kara walked up. "Lee, are you still there?" Helo asked again, Kara looked at him and could see something was wrong. The comm. hung from his hand and he looked something akin to horrified.

"Helo? It's Starbuck, Lee seems to be unavailable right now."

"I didn't want to have to tell him like this."

"Tell him what?"

"Last night Dee killed herself." When Helo repeated the message Lee walked over to the tall grass and promptly threw up.

"Oh gods," Kara had never been overly fond of Dee, but she had never wished anything like this on her "when's the next raptor coming down?" she asked as she walked further away from Lee she knew they needed to get up there ASAP.

"I can leave in 5 minutes. I've been suited up and waiting to hear from him since I talked to you last. The Admiral put me on duty for this."

"We aren't on the beach; we are about 2 clicks inland, near a forked tree. It's the only one like it, and there's a nice clearing in the meadow, the raptor should come down just fine there."

"I'll be there as soon as possible, try to keep him together until then."

"Out." Was her only reply, and once Helo mimicked it she turned for Lee.

He was ashen and wan. The previous look of horror was replaced with some far off look. At some point he had sat down on the blanket they had shared the night before. His head was in his hands and he was just shaking his head over and over again. Kara sat down next to him and put a reassuring hand on his back. There were lots of things she had never been good at, but for some reason people always found comfort in her in their time of need.

"I'm not going to ask if you're okay, cos I can see that you aren't." She paused a beat. "I know that nothing I can say will make this any better, I can tell you not to feel guilty, but I know that you already do." She rubbed her hand over his broad shoulders and down his back. The muscles under his shirt were tense; her hand came to rest at his waist. "I just want you to know that I'm here, and that I love you. We'll get through this, and we'll be okay on the other side."

Lee said nothing, but he leaned into her and wrapped his arms around her. He buried his head in her neck. They didn't move until the raptor had landed, and even then Helo had to drag him on board.


	11. Back to Earth

**Author's Note: This is the last chapter. I've included the inspirational playlist for this story at the end as well (look at me be all Stephenie Meyer!). If you liked this story, please review it and let me know! If enough people ask for it, I may write a continuation. Otherwise keep an eye out for more new BSG work, and I promise more Lee & Kara awesomeness!! Thank you to all my awesome reviewers so far!!!**

Kara could feel the guilt rolling off of Lee. On their way back to Galactica he wouldn't look at her. After viewing the body with the Old Man he disappeared. Kara might have been the ghost, but Lee was just hollow. Even though he had retired, he wore his uniform to the funeral. She could see he was grasping at the one thing that had been stable for so long, his military life.

Anastasia Dualla was the first Sagittaron to be buried on land since New Caprica. It had been a point of contention with the Sagittarons that according to their funerary rights and rituals, their dead were to be hastily returned to the ground from whence they came. There was to be no embalming, no fancy coffin, just a simple funeral, a body wrapped in a sheet and a hole in the ground. Being trapped in space had upset their rituals, and Cottle kept as many of them in cold storage as he could (more as of late with the decline in food supplies and refrigerated room availability), but more often than not they got lumped in with everyone else in the crematorium, and evacuated into space. This was an honorable burial for a pilot, but for civilians, it was less than they expected. From space dust they came, to space dust they returned.

Dee's friends had gathered and her superiors, her fellow Sagittarons too. It was dawn the day after she had joined so many others who went before her. Sagittaron priests had dug the grave in the sand; it was the easiest place to dig and offered the least resistance. Karl, Lee, Felix and Sam acted as pall bearers, carrying the stretcher with the sheet wrapped body from the raptor. It was the job of the priests to actually lower her into her final resting place.

Lee stood between Kara and his father as the ritual began. He had never been much for the gods, much like his father. Zak and his mother had always been the spiritual ones. Events like this always made him slightly unsettled. Zak's funeral had been awful, and he was secretly happy that he never had to attend his mothers, granted she had no funeral at all outside of a burning planet.

The priest began with the prayer:

_We gather here this morning to deliver our daughter Anastasia Dualla back into the ground from which all of us are made. In the beginning life here started out there, and so it shall continue in the future. By placing her here, we give her remains a chance to nurture what will come after her. While this planet is not her home of origin, it was nonetheless the home of a tribe of our brethren. Her trip to the Elysium Fields will not be easy, but we hope that the gods take mercy on her, for she had survived so much and had burdened herself with so many responsibilities. She served her colony, her fleet, her family and her friends well. Her voyage across the River Styx will be perilous, but we hope she will be greeted on the other side by her brother Darrin, and her mother and father. While she did not follow her pacifistic faith, she did defy it, but by doing so she helped to save so many. Lords of Kobol, let this child pass, embrace her in the afterlife as she was in this life, and set her free. So it is said in the book, so say we all._

During the ceremony the only thing she could do is lace her fingers between his and squeeze his hand. His hand was limp in hers, but that didn't stop her from holding it. She had looked up at him several times, to only see a stoic countenance. She only let go when the prayer was over. When the priest was done, they each dropped a handful of sand onto the body.

People stood around and mingled, recalling the Dee they all knew and loved. No one mentioned the Dee that would take her own life. Lee did his best, accepting handshakes and hugs from various Sagittarons. He was visibly uncomfortable, but Kara could do little to comfort him.

As people boarded the transports to head back to the stars he had opted to wait until the second round to head back. Kara followed suit. He wandered down the beach among the ruins of a former civilization, amidst the ruins of the human race. She had never been much for maternal instincts (at least before the stinging memory that was Kacey), but right now all she wanted to do was care for Lee. She just wanted to know he was okay. Delicacy was not something she was skilled at either.

"Lee, are you ever going to talk to me again?" Was the first thing that came to her mind, she lacked the filters to stop herself from saying it out loud.

"Does everything have to be about you Kara?" The bite in his words was not lost on her.

"I didn't mean it like that. I meant, I mean, gods Lee, you have just shut down. Twenty-four hours ago we were here, on this planet, we were together, and now, you won't even look me in the eye."

"She blew her head off. Kara, have you ever seen that? One half was Dee and the other half was meat." His voice cracked a little when he spoke. "I'm sorry if I feel like maybe I might be more than a little responsible for putting my ex-wife in the ground."

"Lee, you didn't make her do this."

"I never made it easy for her, you above all know that."

"What Lee, do you think if you had been up there instead of here with me that things would be different?"

"She knew I was down here looking for you. She wasn't an idiot."

"Sure Lee, once again Kara the frak-up is responsible for everything bad that happens to you. That's a convenient lie isn't it? If I felt I had anything to do with this I'd admit it but I really doubt one event is what pushed her over the edge. Things have been rough for a lot of people. Finding the hope of our people to be a desolate destroyed piece of rock didn't make anyone's life easier."

He sighed, Kara knew that to be Lee's _you're right_ sigh.

"They gave me a box of her things. She hasn't even been dead 24 hours and her locker is cleaned out."

"I'm sure it wasn't easy when Anders got the box of my stuff."

"We never cleaned out your locker." He said quietly. "We had talked about it, Anders and me, but we couldn't do it."

It hadn't even dawned to her that when she came back her locker was in the same way it was when she left.

"Why are we doing any of this when all that's left of us can be neatly fit into a box when we're gone?" Lee asked, maybe not of Kara, but at least of the gods.

"A life is more than what fits in a box. A life is also stored in the memories of the people you touched. Dee isn't just what's in that box. She's stored in all the lives she touched."

"Helo told me that her last night she spent watching Hera. When they came back from shift Dee and Hera were laughing so hard they were crying. They were tickling each other, and just laughing. He said it was hard to tell where Dee's laughter stopped and Hera's began. How do you go from being that happy to shooting yourself in the head? I just can't understand it." Lee stared out into the dark sea. The tide was coming in, even on a dead planet the tide rose and fell like clockwork.

"Maybe she wanted her last memories to be happy ones. Maybe she didn't want to go onto the next life filled with sadness. She wanted to go with a lighter heart."

Lee nodded, seemingly understanding, but she still knew he didn't.

"Lee, when I went, away, I couldn't go until I had unburdened myself, I had to let go. Maybe that was Dee's way of letting go of this life. It's not easy to understand I know that…"

"No, it is. I remember floating out there; floating among the stars, and making peace with my life, ready to sink into the abyss. There was one thing I couldn't let go of; I think it tethered me to life. I guess I just can't understand being able to cut that string."

"It's not easy to let go of the things you love." Kara walked up to him and put a hand on his arm.

"I couldn't let go of you. You were my one regret, you were the one thing I wanted to make right. I wanted to live long enough to see your face one more time." He looked at her for what felt like the first time, "I guess it just makes me sad that Dee had nothing to tether her to this life, and neither did you."

He took her face in his hands and kissed her gently on the mouth.

"Lee…"

"No, I don't want you to explain yourself, you don't owe me anything."

"But Lee, I didn't need a tether. I knew it wasn't the end for me, somewhere deep inside of me I knew it." She wrapped her arms around him tightly and put her head to his chest. "I loved you enough to know that when I went into that cloud things weren't ending. I knew that when I met you on the other side there would be a new beginning." Lee protectively wrapped his arms around her.

"I love you enough not to leave, and you love me enough to leave." Lee sort of scoffed at the idea. "What a pair we are." He almost smiled as he kissed her on top of her head.

They stood like that for a while. When the raptors broke atmo they created sonic booms. For a moment it sounded like fireworks, but there were no sparks in the sky, no flashes of light, just sound. They slowly made their way back to the transports, and back off the planet.

*****Fin*****

**Prologue**

Somewhere on earth, in an empty meadow grows a tree. Early on it grew in two directions, but now it grows as a single force, erupting from the ground. It holds both arms up to the sky, and on one of the arms there are names.

**Playlist (not separated by chapters, just in some semblance of order for the story):**

**Gary Jules – Mad World  
Stone Sour – Through Glass  
Placebo – Running up that Hill  
Ana Nalick – Catalyst  
Smashing Pumpkins – Rotten Apples  
Nine Inch Nails – Dead Souls (Joy Division cover)  
Death Cab for Cutie – Lovesong (The Cure cover)  
The Foo Fighters – Everlong  
The Urgency – Fingertips  
Jay Gordon – Slept So Long  
Nine Inch Nails – Sin  
The Cure – A Night Like This  
Regina Spektor - Us  
Toad the Wet Sprocket – Something's Always Wrong  
Death Cab for Cutie – Cath  
Save Ferris – Let Me In  
Shakespeare's Sister - Stay**


End file.
